The Green Bag May, 1911
Volume XXIII
Number 5
Captain Micaj ah Woods BY R. T. W. DUKE, JR.‘
HE death of Capt. Micajah Woods, which occurred on the 14th day of March, 1911, removes from the Virginia
Bar one of its best known and most distinguished members. Captain Woods was born in Albemarle County, Vir ginia, at Holkham, on the 17th day of
May, 1844. His father, Dr. John Rodes Woods, was for many years considered the leading authority upon stock-raising in Virginia, and his mother was Miss Sabina Lewis Stuart Creigh.
On both
sides of his family he is descended from Scotch-Irish ancestry. His first Ameri can progenitor, Michael Woods, re ceived a patent to a large tract of land from George II in 1737, in the western part of Albemarle County, which was then Goochland County. The wife of this Michael was Mary Campbell, who
belonged to the clan of which the Duke of Argyle was the head. William Woods, the great-grandfather of Micajah Woods,
His early education was obtained at the Lewisburg Academy, the Military School of Charlottesville taught by Col. John Bowie Strange, and at the Bloom
field Academy, taught by Messrs. Broun and Tebbs. In 1861 he entered the University of Virginia, and like many of the other young men of the South,
was soon a member of the Confederate Army. 'He first served when barely seventeen years of age as volunteer aide on the staff of Gen. John B. Floyd, in the West Virginia campaign of 1861,
and then in 1862 as a private in the Albemarle Light Horse Company, in the Second Regiment Virginia Cavalry, and afterwards was first lieutenant in the Virginia state line. In May, 1863,
he was elected and commissioned first lieutenant in Jackson's Battery of Horse Artillery, Army of Northern Virginia, in which capacity he served until the close of the War.
Among the battles
was a member from Albemarle County
in which he participated were Carnifax
of the Legislature of Virginia in 1798
Ferry, Port Republic, Second Cold Har bour, New Market, Second Manasses,
and 1799, and his son Micajah was a member of the Albemarle County Court
Sharpsburg, Winchester, Fisher's Hill
from 1815 to 1837, and was High Sheriff
and Gettysburg.
of the County, ex oflicio, at the time of
his death.
Through his mother he was
descended
from
At the close of the war he returned to
Stuart,
the University, where he studied in the Academic Department for one year,
County Lieutenant of Augusta County,
and then studied law, being graduated
from 1755 on for several years.
therefrom in 1868 with the degree of Bachelor of Law. He immediately
' Of Charlottesville. Va.
Col.
David
